Political Constraints and the Limited Effect of Electoral System Change on Personal Vote-Seeking in Hungary

This article aims at capturing how the recent changes in Hungary’s mixed-member electoral system altered the candidates’ personal vote-seeking strategies. Based on the literature, one might expect that strengthening the role of the Single-Member District (SMD) tier increases the incentives for perso...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEast European politics and societies Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 119 - 141
Main Authors Papp, Zsófia, Zorigt, Burtejin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications Ltd 01.02.2018
SAGE Publications
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Campaigns
Candidates
Constraints
Elections
Electoral systems
Expectations
Government/Political systems
Incentives
Political behavior
Political campaigns
Politics and society
Sociology of Politics
Voting
candidates
Hungary
mixed electoral system
comparative candidate survey
personalisation
campaign
personal voteseeking
personal vote-seeking
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Summary:This article aims at capturing how the recent changes in Hungary’s mixed-member electoral system altered the candidates’ personal vote-seeking strategies. Based on the literature, one might expect that strengthening the role of the Single-Member District (SMD) tier increases the incentives for personalisation. By utilizing the data from two consecutive waves of the Comparative Candidate Survey, we show that contrary to these expectations the average level of campaign personalisation decreased from 2010 to 2014. Semi-structured interviews with nine campaign staff members confirm that the political constraints were more important in determining campaign strategies than the institutional setting. Our findings challenge the dominating effect of electoral rules on personal vote-seeking.
ISSN:0888-3254
1533-8371
DOI:10.1177/0888325417736809